SARAH

With Halloween coming up Saturday, I have a story for you. Four years after we moved into our home in Durand, we decided to add a family room and a two-car garage. Ernie, the carpenter who remodeled the house before he sold it to us, would attach the addition to the rear of the existing story-and-a half structure. Marsden came with his tractor and backhoe to do the digging necessary for the concrete footings to be poured before construction could begin. The first thing he did was remove the cement stoop beside the backdoor to our kitchen. In the process, he turned the slab over. We were flabbergasted to see that it was a tombstone for Sarah Sackett who lived from 1819 to 1880. Had she been buried in our back yard? Would we be disturbing a ghost? He didn’t uncover a coffin or any bones.

We checked the property abstract, a document that summarized the record of owners for our corner lot from the beginning of the village in 1856. Several Sacketts were listed as title holders during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

My next errand was checking the Laona Township Cemetery north of town where my mother’s parents are buried. It didn’t take long to find the gray, granite monument that was nearly as tall as I am with Sackett in large letters across the top. Three names were etched on the side: Isaac Sackett 1789 – 1881; Mary Sackett 1806 – 1889; and Sarah Johnson 1819 – 1880. Her name differed but the dates were the same. Apparently, sometime after Sarah died, her cheaper, small, concrete marker was replaced with the joint, more expensive one. Being prudent people, the family didn’t throw away the chunk of cement. They turned it over and used it as a step to enter their house.

Have you ever frugally repurposed something in an odd way?